A “Book Brigade,” a human chain stretching across campus from Butler Library to the new Library and Academic Resources Center, will be held at 12:45 on Thursday, Aug. 24, passing books from the old building to the new.

Approximately 400 Lindenwood students, faculty, staff, and administrators are expected to take part. Lindenwood’s new $21 million, 100,000-square-foot Library and Academic Resources Center (LARC) is set to open more than two years after its spring 2015 groundbreaking. The building replaces the 36,000-square-foot Butler Library, which was built in 1929.

After transferring a token collection of books (about 50 volumes) from one building to the other, participants and the news media will be able to go inside and take a look at the new building to see what a 21st century university library looks like: virtual reality, a multimedia area with separate editing suites, traditional and electronic stacks, smart classrooms, and a variety of other resources for learning, not to mention a Starbuck’s coffee shop.